Russia’s industrial output continues to gradually recover in January despite fewer working days than a year ago

RUSSIA ECONOMICS - In Brief 15 Feb 2021 by Alexander Kudrin

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Rosstat reported that the country’s industrial output contracted in January by 2.5% y-o-y. Mining was down by 7.1% and manufacturing by 1.0% y-o-y. In the same report, the statistical agency significantly revised up December 2020 statistics, particularly on the manufacturing side. The 4Q20 and annual data were also revised. Instead of previously reported 4.4% y-o-y growth in manufacturing, the revised December 2020 figure now stands at 7.9%. The new data suggest that in 2020 as a whole, manufacturing was up by 0.6% (instead of the previous 0.3%). In 4Q20, it grew by 2.3% y-o-y. It is almost certain that recently reported January 2021 statistics will be revised up soon as well. Meanwhile, the reported 1.0% y-o-y contraction in manufacturing doesn’t look too bad as in January 2021, Russia had fewer working days than January 2020 (15 versus 17). Mining remains under some influence of the OPEC+ deal.Even though Rosstat reported that seasonally and calendar adjusted total industrial output contracted in January by 3.8% relative to December 2020, the figure also looks not too bad as the revised December 2020 figure points to 4.0% m-o-m seasonally adjusted growth. Meanwhile, usually, it seems better not to pay much attention to the last time point of the seasonally adjusted time series. Indeed, the data at the end of the line is always subject to change when the seasonally adjusted curve is published next month as additional data added.Overall, it looks as though the industry continues to slowly recover even though production in the oil extraction segment remains suppressed. It was down by 9.8% y-o-y last month. From May, y-o-y growth will turn positive in this sector.Evgeny ...